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Aging and Treble and Income?

I'm in my late 50s; been listening to, and playing, music for most of my life. I still occasionally haunt the salons, but these days not to buy new gear; more just curiosity about developments in our wonderful hobby. These days I just buy music; records, CDs and the odd download.
I was listening to a very expensive system recently, a combination of an excellent digital front end, feeding an exotic tube array of components, and outputting via a beautifully constructed set of English high-end speakers.
A very impressive sound to say the least. Not like real music though: very very good hi-fi, but not real.
One of the obvious oddities was the frequency response above maybe 4k. Just incorrect. Very clear, very emphasised and incisive, no doubt, but not right.
And it occured to me that this isn't unusual. And then a set of questions came to me. For the purposes of this debate I will exclude the 128k iPod generation - their tastes in listening are their own, and as much driven by budget as space constraint as anything else. I prefer to concentrate on the generation that has increased leisure and disposable income. It's a sad fact that this generation is plagued by the inevitability of progressive hearing loss, most often accompanied by diminished ability to hear higher frequencies. But it's this generation that can afford the 'best' equipment.

My question is simply this: is it not possible (or highly likely) that the higher-end industry is driven by the need to appeal to those whose hearing is degrading? In other words, is there a leaning towards the building-in of a compensatory frequency emphasis in much of what is on the shelves? My question is simplistic, and the industry may indeed be governed by the relentless pursuit of accuracy and musicality, but so much that I have hear is, I find, very difficult to listen to as it is so far from what I believe to be reality. Perhaps there has always been an emphasis in making our sytems sound "exciting" as opposed to "honest": I can understand the pleasure in this pursuit, as it's the delight in technology itself and I see nothing very wrong in that. But, all this emphasised treble....I just wonder if anyone out there in cyberspace agrees with me?
57s4me
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,200 posts
 
The Greene article is very good!

It always helps to consider aspects of audio "perspective", ie what is heard differently at different locations relative to the source, both in a recording, to the extent possible based on any recording notes and what you hear relative to listening live at various locations in various kinds of venue, and also in your listening room based on the geometry of your listening location relative to speakers in the room and room acoustics, including effects of various speaker locations.

Of course studio recordings in particular are often a black box in regards to information provided about how recorded, you can only listen and make educated guesses perhaps.

It can take a while to get a handle on it all, but lots of fun for a serious listener along the way and worth the effort!
csontos
1,311 posts
 
Sorry, didn't mean to highjack the thread. It's just that as Mapman confirmed and David12 referenced, distortion can skew an otherwise well laid out/engineered listening space whether it's deliberate or not. I really don't think a quality speaker is ever going to be the culprit since they always have a descending response. No matter how good the amp or source, there's always going to be a degree of sibilance which seems to me to be where the the answer lies. Vocal clarity is the toughest to achieve and the effort to do so may be an incidental consequence to the overall response of an amp. On the other hand, there's a marked difference between vinyl/analogue and digital sources. The latter seeming to be tipped up but imo only those that are vinyl conversions. However, I may very well be one of those old farts they're compensating for.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,200 posts
 
Sibilance is a naturally occurring thing and common in many good recordings of various instruments, including human voice. Digital recordings may emphasize it unpleasantly, but the format is not the source. Its usually in the recording just waiting to happen.

Now unwanted sibilance can be produced artificially during playback in some cases. The most common is playing vinyl with a dirty or worn stylus. The dirt deposits and/or stylus wear and/or wear in the groves from prior playing results in sibilance, often heard when a singer pronounces the letter "s" that is a clear form of distortion. I am very sensitive to that and have fought many battles with my vinyl over the years to avoid it.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
Sure, but I'm referring to that being produced by the amp. Or should I say, emphasized by it?
tostadosunidos's avatar
tostadosunidos
1,197 posts
 
Young people are doing the bulk of the buying. They want it loud and exciting, even grossly exaggerated, on both ends (rap is all about the low end in cars and headphones, rock needs to scream as well as thump).

Audiophiles are older and mostly (I think, and I hope) looking for authentic reproduction of sounds that actually can exist, whether acoustic or electric/electronic, in a natural state.

Anyway, I'm suggesting that any slant toward the top end may be an effort to create more "sizzle and snap" for the young, not the old.

Just a thought.
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